


Never Now

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Clintasha - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Get Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Modern AU, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stucky - Freeform, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, millennial Steve Rogers, small town
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Steve Rogers has had a whole life of getting pushed down and struggling to get back to his feet.One day changes his entire life and sends him down a path he never expected.A Stucky AU romance featuring two world weary men who never thought they would find love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalika_999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).

> So it is an incredible pleasure and honor to write this fic. A very amazing person made a very generous donation via Pencils in the Margins and asked me to write a Stucky fic for their friend. What follows is that fic. Updates will be every six-eight days, depending. Currently the writing is at T but it might change.

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

Thirty-eight days into his new job, Steve Rogers was fired. Not fired. ‘Let go.’ ‘Downsized’. Whatever euphemism was most applicable to being kicked to the curb because he was the newest hire and the accounting firm decided to combine a few receptionist jobs, and Steve, who had grasped at the job with desperation two months ago, was one of the receptionists whose job was eliminated.

So. He had a filing box half-filled with crap - the stapler he stole, his first aid kit, three books he’d been reading during his lunch breaks, his sketchbook and a box of tissues - and he was walking the streets of Manhattan in a kind of dispirited rage because what the fuck now?

At twenty-seven, Steve was, very much, alone in the world. Three months ago, his mother had died. Twenty-six years ago, his father had died. Eight months ago, Steve had sublet his room in the apartment he shared with three other twenty-somethings and quit his job as a graphic designer so that he could move in with his mother and take care of her full-time during the last months of her three-year battle with lung cancer. 

Everything felt, pretty much every day, like some kind of murky dream that Steve was floating through. He had been so angry when Sarah Rogers had been diagnosed. His mother hadn’t smoked a day in her life - went so far as to only indulge in pot in the form of edibles - and had spent her entire career as a nurse taking care of people, and she didn’t deserve this bullshit. He had spent four months furious with the world, until Sarah had finally sat him down on their favorite bench in Prospect Park and held him close and told him about the happiest day of her life - the day Steve was suspended from high school for punching a kid who called another boy a faggot. Steve had, shocking no one, had the shit kicked out of him, and had followed Sarah home belligerent and bleeding, expecting a lecture on non-violence, when instead she took him to their favorite pizza place and then they sat on the fire escape outside of their apartment and Sarah told Steve all about how important it was to face down bullies and always get back up again.

There was something about Sarah’s retelling of that day, more than a decade ago, that softened Steve’s anger, that cut off the fuel for it and left him feeling out of sorts and drifting. His mother had always taught him to be a fighter, but this… this wasn’t something he could fight. And neither, it seemed, could she.

Chemo and radiation and surgery and chemo and radiation and surgery and chemo and radiation and surgery. And then hospice, when Sarah announced she was done with waging war on her own body and insisted she wanted to go home. So Steve and Sarah went home, and he was beside her when, two weeks later, she drew her last painful breath and closed her eyes.

Steve threw away the filing box, shoving the entire thing into a trashcan - books and sketchbook and all - and glared at the people giving him looks.

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, hunched his shoulders and plowed his way through pedestrians until he was on the subway, and even then, he curled into his seat and felt that everything was wrong, and at the same time, he felt… nothing. So much nothing.

It had been like that since Sarah’s funeral. Steve just getting by, on his own, with nothing and no one and no feelings.

And hell, no money.

But now... now, he really had no money.

Steve had been a sickly kid, in and out of the hospital so much that he knew the nursing staff almost as well as his mother did, and as a consequence, Sarah had never been able to amass much in the way of savings. After her death, Steve had had to use her retirement ‘savings’ to pay the bills for her medical care, had had to charge the austere funeral expenses to his never-before-used credit card, and had had just enough left in his bank account after to cover six months of rent for his mother’s apartment.

He got off the train at his stop, fighting against the surge of humanity determined to move in the opposite direction as him, and made his way up to the streets of Brooklyn and couldn’t help but glare at the sunny sky.

The world never did want to cooperate with him.

Then again, if the weather was more reflective of his mood… who the hell knew what it would be like.

WIth a sigh, Steve pulled open the door to the bodega closest to the apartment and stepped inside.

There wasn’t any food at home, because there never was, and Steve just… couldn’t really summon up the energy to care about that very much.

He walked between the bodega’s three cramped aisles, thumbnail worrying the corner of his right pants pocket, and grimaced at the premade sandwich offerings.

Eventually, he settled on a club sandwich and a six pack of Amstel Light.

He put them on the checkout counter and tried to look less than miserable when he met the tired, bored gaze of the cashier.

But when Steve handed over his debit card, the cashier raised his eyebrows and pointed to a paper sign.

Cash Only. Card reader broken.

Right. Of course.

Steve fumbled for his wallet again. As a rule, he didn’t really carry cash. But there was a single bill - a hundred dollar bill that had been hugging the back of his wallet ever since his birthday because his mother insisted on giving him sensible birthday presents and Steve wasn’t even about to complain. He felt a moment of nostalgic panic as he fingered the still crisp bill. The last birthday present from his mother he would ever get.

He passed over the hundred dollar bill.

The cashier rolled his eyes.

“I don’t have change for that.”

“I don’t have any other cash,” Steve countered.

The cashier scowled, pressed a button to open up his register drawer, and looked inside.

“You need to spend another fifteen dollars,” he announced.

And Steve… Steve could have just said fuck it and gone home without dinner or the beer that he didn’t need. Or hell, he could just go to a different bodega. But… but he was here now, and he just wanted to get food and beer and go home.

He looked around. What the fuck was he going to spend fifteen dollars on?

“Here,” the cashier tapped the clear plastic container full of lotto cards. 

Steve glared at the cashier.

The cashier glared back.

Sarah Rogers had been very vocal about her disdain for the lotto - a great way to steal money from the people who need it most and make everyone think they have a chance for wealth.

But, well, the cards were right there, and so was Steve. And Sarah was dead.

“Fine,” Steve sighed. “Give me whatever.”

Whatever turned out to be three cards - a ten-dollar card, a three-dollar card and a two-dollar card.

The cashier added them to Steve’s total, took his hundred dollar bill, and then passed back the change.

Steve shoved the unwanted lotto tickets into his pocket and picked up the sandwich and beer.

“Have a good night,” he said reflexively.

“Hm,” was the only response he got.

Once at home, Steve dropped the sad sandwich onto the coffee table with one of the Amstels and deposited the rest of the bottles in the fridge to keep cold.

He kicked off his shoes and then nudged them into place by the table full of knickknacks and Sarah’s set of keys, and then flopped down onto the couch, thoroughly defeated by the day and probably life.

The lotto cards dug into his stomach, so he pulled them out of his pocket and dropped them onto the coffee table alongside his dinner.

Depressing as hell.

Steve ripped open the sandwich wrapper and took a bite. Depressing and stale… and soggy. 

He twisted off the cap of the Amstel and took a long, burning pull of the beer. 

Amstel was - had been - Sarah’s favorite beer. Had been the beer that Steve had first tried, on this very couch, at the age of sixteen, under Sarah’s watchful eye and smirking expression. Steve had hated that first sip, but he had grown used to beer over the years, had branched out to try a few others but, always, came back to Amstel. 

Stupid, but there it was. There he was.

Steve dug around in his pocket for change and came up with a rubbed-smooth penny. 

He had paid for the cards and, even if his mother’s ghost was yelling at him not to, he might as well scratch off the cards and see just what fifteen dollars hadn’t gotten him.

The first card, the ten-dollar card, was some kind of ‘Lucky Number’ card. Steve’s lucky number was, apparently, eighteen. A number that appeared on approximately none of the sixteen squares he scratched off.

With a snort of bitter laughter, Steve set the card aside and scratched off the other two cards - not even bothering to read the directions or caring what he was scraping - just scraping until there was a pile of slick painted dust on the table and under his nails, and the two cards were fully exposed.

The two-dollar card claimed that every card was a winner. 

And, sure enough - Steve was a winner. 

$1.

Not even the price of the card itself. There was, Steve was pretty sure, a kind of perfect Rogers irony to that.

He shoved the three-dollar card away, uninterested in it entirely after the other two, and picked up the rest of his sandwich.

Tonight, he would wallow. He would eat the sad, sad sandwich and drink all six Amstels, and lay on the couch and feel sorry for himself.

But tomorrow… tomorrow, he needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do now.

-o-

When Steve woke up in the morning, his head was pounding and his back ached.

He blinked open bleary eyes to see sunlight streaming in the windows, making his mismatched socks glow in the early morning light.

Last night, he had polished off the entire six-pack of Amstel, his sad, sad sandwich, and had fallen asleep on the couch. Which explained both the head and the back pain.

On the coffee table, all six bottles of Amstel were lined up, their wrappers meticulously peeled off, straightened and placed in piles beside them. The lotto cards and the sandwich wrapper kept them company and, on the whole, did a great job of demonstrating just how pathetic Steve’s prospects were looking.

With a grunt, Steve levered himself into a sitting position and stretched. Ow.

The couch had never been comfortable. Not when he was five and too sick to go to school and Sarah bundled him up and let him watch Sesame Street all day under the supervision of their neighbor, Mrs. Rodriguez. Not when he had been seventeen and crying about being stood up by his prom date while his mother was at work and no one was the wiser to his misery. Not when he was twenty-one and suffering from his first “official” hangover. Not when he was twenty-four and getting high with Sarah on the couch while they watched The Wizard of Oz. Not three months ago when he came home from burying her.

Steve stood up, gathered up the bottles and deposited them in the recycling bin. 

He winced at the unforgiving clatter of noise, and then went back to the table to retrieve the trash.

The labels fluttered into the plastic bin, and then in went the ten-dollar card. He almost threw away the two-dollar card but… a dollar was a dollar. 

He’d already tossed the three-dollar card into the bin when he realized he had never even looked at it.

Gingerly, he picked it back up and looked at it.

Hidden Treasure, it proclaimed.

The instructions allowed him three tokens - revealed at the top of the card - for three chances to ‘discover’ the treasure. If any of the tokens matched the tokens below, he would win the dollar amount of the ‘discovered’ tokens.

Except, of course, Steve didn’t even have three tokens. Just two, because the final token was instead a five-times multiplier. So he had two chances to win, and if he did happen to actually win, whatever amount he won would be multiplied by five.

So maybe he’d win five dollars, Steve thought to himself.

He looked over the card. No match at all for the first token. The second- 

The second did have a match.

The second had a match worth $70,000.

Steve blinked, had to scrub his eyes and look at the card again.

Those tokens absolutely did match.

He had just won $70,000.

Holy shit. 

He-

He also had that five-times multiplier which meant.

$350,000.

Well.

$350,001.

Steve stared down at the lotto card, unable and more than a little unwilling to believe it.

Was this really happening?

To him?

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	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes house hunting and meets a very special red head.

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* * *

  
  
  
  


The summer that Steve turned thirteen, Sarah requested a week off of work and took him to a cabin in the Catskills. 

It was the first - and would turn out to be the only - vacation Steve could remember them ever taking together. Sarah, almost without fail, had to use her time off to take care of Steve when he was, inevitably, sick. That year, she didnt have to - not yet, in any case - and one of the doctors on her floor let her borrow his cabin for the week. 

Steve burned the first day, Sarah the second, and they spent the rest of the week slathered in sunscreen and layers of clothing, and it was the most perfect week of Steve’s life.

He might have Brooklyn in the foundations of his soul, but that one week of sunshine and fresh air and Sarah’s smiles had meant more than an afternoon at Coney Island ever could.

They ate hot dogs and salad almost every night, they watched the sunsets and sunrises, and hiked for as long as Steve’s lungs and frail body could handle it before turning back and napping all afternoon.

At the end of her life, Sarah held Steve’s hand and talked about that summer, about that perfect week, and her pain-lined face smoothed with remembered joy, and Steve… 

Steve stared at his new bank account balance and decided it was time to leave Brooklyn.

Driving his zipcar over the George Washington Bridge as he left the city was a strange feeling, even if it was just for the day, just to meet a realtor and look at houses.

Because, soon enough - if this worked - it wouldn’t be for just a day. It would be for… maybe the rest of his life.

It took almost two hours to get to the tiny town nestled among the hills and lakes. The main street of the town, or the equivalent, consisted of maybe three blocks of municipal and commercial buildings. 

More than ten years had passed since Steve had last been there, but it seemed strangely frozen in time, as if almost nothing had changed since Sarah had driven them to the Italian bakery beside the Post Office to get breakfast that first morning.

The Italian bakery was still there, and so was the pizza place, the sports bar, the bagel place and the thrift store. The nearest grocery store was in the next town over, unless that had changed since his childhood, but one of the two gas stations in the town looked as though it had been converted into something else in the last decade.

_ General Store, _ the sign proclaimed. The gas pumps had been pulled out, and the building repainted green and white. 

Steve’s realtor, Scott, had told Steve they would meet at the  _ General Store _ at noon. 

For once, Steve was early - by nearly half an hour - and he sincerely hoped that the place offered coffee. He figured it would be too much to dream about a wifi connection in a town that still had a movie rental store.

Walking inside the  _ General Store _ , Steve had to stop and stare.

The place was  _ not _ at all like the rundown establishments in the rest of the town. It was definitely new, but not only that, it was well taken care of.

The wooden floors gleamed, ancient planks alive and golden, and the store was decorated with fairy lights and hanging paper birds. The store seemed to carry a little bit of everything - basic food items in the form of dry goods and refrigerated things; fresh-baked pastries; puzzles and board games; an assortment of clothes that looked like they would have been at home in a Brooklyn boutique; a section of hand tools and useful equipment to have around the house; a deli counter; and-

A large sign with the wifi name and password.

It made Steve laugh a little - made him relax a little, too.

Maybe he wasn’t going to be quite so far away from civilization as he had started to fear he might be.

“Morning.”

Steve had to search for the source of the voice, and eventually found it on a ladder near the back of the store. 

A slight woman, close to Steve’s height, with brilliant copper hair and dark red lips was tinkering with the wall clock.

“Morning,” Steve responded.

“Passing through or staying a while?” she asked, full attention on the clock.

“Uh. Sort of both?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, mouth curved into a smirk.

“I’ve heard that before,” she said.

“Really?”

“Sure. It’s what I told myself when I drove through town and saw this place up for sale three years ago. Figured I was just up here for a weekend in the woods, and then…”

Steve laughed.

“Yeah. You- you’ve done a great job with the place.”

“Thanks.” She finished up whatever she was doing and climbed down the ladder, and made her way through the store until she was standing just in front of Steve.

She was just the slightest bit shorter than him, but her vivid green eyes and bright hair made her seem almost larger than life.

“I’m Natasha,” she said.

“Steve.”

“Well, Steve, come by for anything in particular?”

“Coffee?”

She was back to smirking.

“Then you came to the right place. C’mon. I’ve got a whole menu of fancy things that I’m trying to convince the locals to indulge in, and of course the boring stuff.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, and she huffed at him.

“C’mon, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a caramel latte.”

“What if I don’t like caramel?”

“Then you clearly aren’t human.”

Steve had to laugh, maybe a little in love with this woman who didn’t seem to care if she offended him or not.

“Sure, I’ll have one.”

“Whipped cream?”

“If I say no, are you going to throw me out?”

“Smart man. Have a seat, and I’ll have that right up.”

She gestured to an old retro linoleum table under one of the windows, surrounded by mismatched chairs. On the table surface was a half-finished puzzle, and Steve was able to sit there not touching it for all of ninety seconds before he started searching for pieces.

He lost himself in the task, and was startled when Natasha appeared with a large ceramic mug heavily adorned with whipped cream and smelling like heaven.

“Wow.”

“I know.”

She sat down in the chair opposite him and waited for Steve to take a sip of the drink.

“Wow,” he had to say again.

He was fully aware that spending his entire life in Brooklyn made him, well, a bit of a snob when it came to everything from coffee to pizza to bagels to wifi, but even he had to admit the fancy coffee was very fancy and very, very good.

Natasha pulled a puzzle piece out of the pile and fit it into place.

“Are you from around here?” she asked. 

“No. From the city, but my mom and I stayed out here one summer.”

“Mm.” Natasha managed to sound indifferent and encouraging at the same time, and Steve- Steve suddenly couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“She died a few months ago, and I just need to get away, you know? I just- What’s the point of anything, and I don’t- I don’t know what to do anymore. I lost my job and my apartment, and I can’t keep living in her old place, and I just… I kind of want a change.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Makes sense. Pretty big change - New York to here.”

“Yeah. It’s… Yeah.”

Maybe it was too big of a change. Maybe- 

A phone rang and Natasha got up from her seat, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts.

“General Store,” she answered the phone briskly. “No, James, I still don’t have a new assistant. No - no, I can’t make it out to your place until tonight after I close. Well, you could always come get the groceries yourself. No - James. It’s fine. I  _ told _ you it’s fine. But I can’t just close my store in the middle of the day because you have a peanut butter emergency. Don’t say that. I’m hilarious, and you love me. I know. Tonight. I promise.”

Steve didn’t even pretend that he hadn’t been listening in - it wasn’t like Natasha had tried to keep the phone call private, after all.

When she hung up the phone, she gave Steve a look.

“Sometimes change is good,” she said, “and sometimes it’s not.”

With that cryptic remark, she grabbed the ladder and carried it through a door and out of sight.

-o-

Three hours with Scott Lang was… a lot.

A  _ lot _ , a lot. 

When the man arrived at the  _ General Store, _ he filled up an extremely large travel mug with coffee that Steve was positive he didn’t need, and didn’t stop talking for the entire time it took him to drive Steve to the first house he wanted him to look at. 

In fact, he only stopped talking when Steve interrupted him to ask questions. It was almost like Scott was afraid of silence.

And after three hours and five houses, Steve was exhausted, irritated and could feel a headache coming on. 

It wasn’t just because of Scott’s running commentary on everything from the dead previous owners of a house to the lawn decor choices of Steve’s potential neighbors, but the houses themselves just weren’t quite… right.

Most of them were too large - two and three or four bedroom houses that had so much room Steve felt even smaller and more insignificant than usual the moment he stepped into them.

None of them had the feel of that summer, of that little cabin tucked away in the woods that had been filled with sunshine and Sarah’s laughter, and Steve was starting to despair of finding anything to even  _ settle _ for, much less fall in love with.

That is, until Scott drove his minivan over a bumpy road and across a bridge and pulled into an unpaved driveway that wound through tall trees and eventually brought them to a stop in front of a two-story cabin right on the Delaware river. 

It was old - built in the 1930s, Scott supplied as they got out of the minivan - and covered with grayish-brown cedar shake shingles and cyan colored trim.

Steve was immediately in love, and barely even heard Scott’s voice as they walked into the house.

The kitchen was small, but newly renovated. The living room and dining room were just one large, open area that took up the rest of the first floor. The wooden planks under Steve’s feet were the color of honey, knotted pine, and reminded him of summer, of Sarah. There was a fireplace on the first floor in that main room and, Steve found out as he followed Scott upstairs, in one of the two bedrooms. 

The bathroom was surprisingly large, also recently renovated, and everything was clean and bright and perfect.

Scott was still talking, something about the leaves and rental income and bears and-

“I’ll take it,” Steve decided.

* * *

* * *

[Here’s Steve’s new house!](http://realestate.catskilldreamteam.com/idx/photogallery/a554/123433)

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah... the wonders of country living.

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* * *

  


There was something indescribably _ magical _ about seeing fragile green sprouts push through soil to meet the sun when the day before they hadn’t been visible at all.

Steve had never really tried to grow things before. During college he had had a succulent, a gift from Sarah Rogers after they listened to a podcast on plants improving your sex life and, as Sarah said to him many times, Steve needed to put himself out there a bit more.

The succulent hadn’t been all that helpful, but Steve _ did _ get laid a few times while the plant decorated the windowsill of his room. Until one night he’d had drunken sex that had gotten a little too enthusiastic and the succulent had been knocked off it’s perch and the small blue ceramic bowl it lived in had shattered. Bowl, rocks and plant had all been swept up into the trash by Steve’s one night stand while Steve sat in the bathroom and picked pottery sherds out of his foot and patched himself up.

But, now that he was living out in the woods, now that he was _ here _, in this life in this new place, Steve figured he should give gardening a real try.

He started off by lining both porches of the house in planters for herbs, vegetables and a few edible flowers.

It was hard work, hauling bags of potting soil to and fro, shoveling them into the pots and adding plant food and seeds and meticulously labeled little wooden stakes to each pot. 

After three days, however, Steve had his two little porch gardens and was still struggling to dig out the line of dirt at the bottom of his nail bed.

Still, it felt _ good _, and when the thyme pushed free for the first time, Steve actually flattened himself onto the porch and stared at it even closer, a stupid grin on his face.

It was just… really fucking cool. 

And he had done this. All on his own, with the help of Google, sure, but still. 

Steve Rogers, city boy, was a gardner. 

He - well, Scott - had managed to negotiate a great price for the house, several thousand dollars below the asking price, and it had left Steve with a comfortable amount of money to set aside and invest. If he was smart, and stayed healthy, he might actually be okay for a long while. 

Letting go of his mother’s apartment had been more difficult than he had anticipated, and packing up the things he planned to take, donate or sell even more challenging. 

Sarah’s presence had been everywhere, in everything, and it had been a growing pressure in Steve’s chest as he packed box after box until he finally broke down while sorting through her CD collection. 

Steve wasn’t even going to keep any of them - his laptop didn’t even have a CD drive - but just looking at all of Sarah’s music, remembering the way she swayed in place with a smile and closed eyes to her favorites - it broke something in Steve.

He spent… a long time sitting on the floor amid all of the CDs, crying until he felt like he couldn’t possibly have anything left inside.

Most of the furniture he brought - though not the couch. That went to Goodwill with absolutely no regrets and Steve treated himself to a very nice, very plush sofa in his new house that was the perfect size for him to stretch out on and be swallowed up by the soft gray cushions.

There was still a small stack of unpacked boxes in the second bedroom upstairs but, with the constant companion of his favorite podcasts, Steve had unpacked and settled into his new house in just over two weeks. 

After his foray into gardening, after watching plant after plant grow and flourish, Steve decided to explore his surroundings.

The river was amazing, though intimidating, and the few hikes he had taken along the bank had resulted in muddy clothes and bloody palms after he fell too many times.

So he stuck to the woods, flat and dense and lush, and did his level best to identify new plants, bugs and animals every day.

It was rewarding, and it was a hell of a lot easier to fall asleep in the silent house each night when he was too physically exhausted to miss the sounds of the city.

It was nice.

It was great.

After five weeks, Steve was bored out of his fucking mind.

He had never really considered himself a people person - more often than not, Steve struggled to find common ground with other people. It was too difficult, really, to just _ get along _. 

Steve knew that about himself, knew that he could never ‘leave well enough alone’ and picked fights all of the time. 

But he also knew that his once a week interaction with the cashier at the grocery store in the next town - an interaction that consisted of ‘hi. Thanks. I’ve got my own bags. Have a nice night.’ was simply not enough human contact to sustain himself.

So, after doing a perimeter check of his garden - checking in on the garlic chives that had seemed to initially thrive and were now struggling a bit - Steve packed up his computer, charger and phone and drove into town to visit the General Store.

It was the first time he had been back since that first day, but Natasha looked up from her place behind the deli counter where she was slicing roast beef for a customer, and grinned at him.

“Well, well, I heard a rumor that you’d moved to town,” she greeted him.

Steve shrugged.

“You’ve got a good intelligence network,” he told her.

She laughed, wrapped up the meat she was cutting, and rang up the customer, wished them a good afternoon, and then turned her attention back to Steve.

“So, how do you like it?”

Steve offered her a wry smile and she laughed again. 

There was endearing about her amusement at his expense, and something about the curve of her lips that seemed more sympathetic than anything else.

“It’s quiet,” Steve said.

“Mm. Too quiet,” she said for him. “Makes you miss getting into shouting matches with random people on the street, doesn’t it?”

Put like that, it sounded a little ridiculous for Steve to be feeling so nostalgic for New York. But, well, put like _ that _, he did kind of miss it.

“I haven’t had anyone shove against me in almost two months,” he sighed and gave her a deeply put upon look. “I don’t even know where to walk without a sidewalk to guide me.”

Natasha snorted.

“Alright. Sure, sure. Poor you. Want anything to eat or drink?”

“Pumpkin Spice Latte,” he responded promptly, because it was on the menu and because if there was anything guaranteed to make him feel at home, it was a ridiculous, delicious coffee like that.

“Coming right up. I’ve got a new puzzle out you can work on while I get it ready.” She nodded towards the same table that Steve had sat at while he waited for Scott last time.

Sure enough, the old puzzle was gone and a new one - the image on the box was that of a nebula in glorious purples, blues and gold - had only just been started.

Steve set his bag down and immediately lost himself in the puzzle.

Natasha joined him after a few minutes, handing over his coffee and taking the seat opposite him and together they pieced together the entire outside of the puzzle.

“I’ve never been… alone,” Steve confessed as they worked.

“How do you mean?” 

“I mean, I lived on my own. It’s not like I’ve had someone holding my hand for my entire life. But… it’s different, living in an apartment building and living in a house in the middle of the woods and never seeing anyone.”

She nodded in agreement.

“It was tough for me at first. I went from living in a place where I never had a moment alone to a place where I’m almost always on my own.” She shrugged. “It was what I wanted, but I didn’t realize just how much of an adjustment it would really be.”

“Yeah. That’s - yeah. I _ like _ having my own place in the woods. I like not having to listen to the couple upstairs fight or the kids next door running around screaming at ten every night.”

“Or the very loud sex from the couple that share a wall with your bedroom?”

“Exactly.”

“But you also kind of miss it,” She shrugged. “I get it. That’s what I like about the Store. Most of the time it’s just me, except in the mornings and at lunch, when it’s slammed. And then just a few visits from a few people in the afternoon, a few last minute customers before I close up at six. It’s just enough to remind me I live around people, but not enough to remind me I’m stuck with them.”

It sounded like a perfect balance to Steve. He wondered how he could find it for himself.

Natasha fit the last perimeter piece into place and offered Steve a smug grin.

The bell on the door sounded and they both turned to see a bedraggled, blond haired man stagger into the store.

“Please, _ please _ tell me you have coffee,” he croaked.

Natasha arched one elegant eyebrow at him.

“What’s in it for me?” She asked.

The man stared at her.

“I, uh… money?” He seemed unsure of his answer.

Natasha smirked and rose from her seat.

“Good enough,” she said and gestured for the newcomer to sit down.

“Thanks?” The man sat and looked from Steve to Natasha, still confused.

Natasha resumed her place at the front counter.

“Regular, room for cream and sugar?” She asked.

“Yeah, largest cup you have, please.”

The man watched Natasha pour the coffee, looking somewhere between mesmerized and halfway to falling asleep.

“I’m Steve,” Steve introduced himself, immediately feeling like an idiot.

The man tore his pale blue gaze away from Natasha.

“Clint. Clint Barton. I, uh, just moved to town. I’m the new park ranger for the forest.”

Steve nodded, as if he knew what the forest was.

“Two cute boys moved to town in two months,” Natasha mused as she handed Clint his coffee. Clint cradled it in hands that Steve couldn’t help but notice were bandaged. “Lucky me.”

“I’m gay,” Steve had to say, in case - in case what, he wasn’t sure. But the words were out there now.

“I’m not,” Clint said and gave Natasha a bright, brilliant smile.

Natasha shook her head, but her lips curved up just the slightest bit.

“Steve,” she turned to him, “I could use some help, part-time, if you wanted to be around more?”

“Really?” Steve looked around the store, completely empty except for the three of them, more than a little incredulous.

“Yeah. Mornings are busy and I could really use someone willing to do grocery deliveries. I can’t leave until after I close up for the night, which means I don’t finish deliveries until almost nine o’clock some nights. If I had someone to do them for me in the afternoons… it would make a world of difference.”

It felt a little too perfect, her offer. A little like her just helping him out.

But they were strangers, she barely knew him - surely she wouldn’t just make up a job so that one of the new locals wasn’t so lonely anymore?

Besides, Steve’s money would run out eventually. Having a job - even a part time one - would mean he could stretch it even further.

“Yeah,” he decided. “Yeah, alright.”

Natasha looked triumphant.

Clint, meanwhile, had seemingly inhaled at least half of the coffee. He set the nearly empty cup back on the table and sighed in contentment.

“Please,” he said, “tell me there’s a decent pizza place around here.”

Natasha gave him a merciless stare.

“Only if you have an oven at your place and know how to cook pizza.”

Clint winced and looked so devastated Steve had to make himself not reach out to comfort him.

“Bagels?” Clint asked next.

Natasha’s lips twitched and she shared a smirk with Steve.

It was a lot like the mental questionnaire Steve had given himself his first day in town.

Clint drew in a breath and let it out in a long, shaky exhale.

“Chinese takeout?”

-o-

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, we WILL meet Bucky next chapter!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, so much thanks to Ro for being a truly amazing friend, an endlessly patient beta reader, and just. The best. Thank you. Always.


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